


your name (twine it with mine)

by lachesisgrimm (olga_theodora)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Attempted Matchmaking, Calligraphy, Christmas, Devoted Reylo, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Fake Dating, Fluff, Mistletoe, Modern AU, Past Child Abuse, Pregnancy, Soft Ben Solo, Soulmate Vibes, cozy abo, craigslist ad au, explicit hand holding, have yourself a very tropetastic christmas, love at first sniff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-09-15 23:48:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16943019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olga_theodora/pseuds/lachesisgrimm
Summary: Alone at Christmas? Mad at your dad?I’m a thirty-year old alpha with years of experience in dealing with difficult family dynamics. If you’d like to have me as your strictly platonic date for Christmas, but have me pretend to be in a very long or serious relationship with you to torment your family, I’m game.Beggars, Rey decided, grasping for any lifeline,can’t be choosers.





	1. cardamom

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leoba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leoba/gifts).



> I'm back! I hope you all enjoy my first foray into ABO, which is almost entirely fluff and _damn you smell good_ with a little bit of angst (HEA guaranteed, have no fear).
> 
> This is dedicated to leoba/leofgyth, who inspired/enabled me to write this in the first place.

“-and then she said-”

“That Poe can’t wait to knot you,” Finn interrupted dramatically, nearly spilling the beer he held in one hand. “That he’s going to mate you on a bed of rose petals, and that one day you- _you_ , Rey Jacobs Dameron, surrounded by your brood of twelve children-”

Rey groaned, grabbing one of the throw pillows from the couch and pressing it over her face. 

“-will turn to her and say ‘Leia, _you were right._ ’”

“Not in so many words,” Rey mumbled into the pillow. “But that was the gist, yeah.”

“This is what you get for not telling her the first time that he smells weird.”

Not bad. Just… weird, in the alpha/omega sense. “I know, Finn.”

“That you wouldn’t spend a heat with him even if the alternative were death.”

She flung aside the pillow. “I’m not sure I would go _that_ far.”

“You just need to come clean, Rey.” He took a sip of his beer, his expression drunkenly sagacious. “Or one day you’ll wake up pregnant with kid number three because you couldn’t bear to disappoint your mentor-slash-pseudo-mother figure.”

He was right, and she hated him a little bit for that, especially considering... 

“It gets worse,” she admitted in slow, regretful tones. 

“I don’t see how.” Finn set aside the empty bottle and clasped his hands over his stomach, an expectant look on his face. 

“I told her I met someone.” Rey picked up her own beer, letting out a sigh. “An alpha.”

Finn snorted. “Do they live in Canada? Because you don’t smell like an alpha’s been cozying up to you.”

“I was desperate.” She narrowed her eyes when he began to laugh. “Stop it, Finn.”

“This scentless, imaginary alpha-”

“-who has been invited to Christmas dinner.”

He stopped laughing, peered at her unsteadily- and then started again, even louder and wilder than before. “ _Peanut._ ”

“I tried to say no,” she grumbled, remembering how Leia had neatly backed her into a metaphorical corner. “But she…”

“She Organa-d you.”

“She motherfucking Organa-d me.”

“And now you have to show up with an alpha.”

“Yeah,” Rey said with a sigh, and knocked back the last bit of beer in the bottle. 

“Okay.” Finn stood up, a little unsteady on his feet, and began making his way to the kitchen. “We’re not nearly drunk enough for this.”

Later, much later, after Finn had passed out on the couch and she was sprawled over her own bed, she somehow found the ad in a haze of alcohol and desperation. 

_Alone at Christmas? Mad at your dad?_

“Don’t have one,” Rey said on a sigh, and clicked the link.

_I’m a thirty-year old alpha with years of experience in dealing with difficult family dynamics. If you’d like to have me as your strictly platonic date for Christmas, but have me pretend to be in a very long or serious relationship with you to torment your family, I’m game._

_Beggars_ , Rey decided, grasping for any lifeline, _can’t be choosers._

She sent the email. 

\- - -

Rey woke up to a hangover and a surprisingly formal response to the message she only barely remembered sending, and for one long moment considered sending back a simple _never mind_. It would be the right thing to do, the smart thing to do, and the next time she saw Leia she would say-

Her phone buzzed, and with bleary eyes she checked the message that had just come through. No words, just a picture: a bundle of mistletoe hung from the door-frame between the Solos’ kitchen and dining room. An easy enough message to interpret, and Rey could only imagine how many times she and Poe would “accidentally” find themselves meeting at that door before and after Christmas dinner- unless, of course, she brought a decoy. 

“This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” she muttered, pulling the blanket back over her head. “Complete, fucking idiocy.”

_Mistletoe._

“Lunacy.”

_MISTLETOE._

“Fuck.”

So she replied to mystery alpha (once her headache had receded), settling the details in the bare minimum of words: where they would meet, what time, and what he needed to know for a relationship that would last no more than six hours, at best. Her name was Rey. She was twenty-two. She worked as a mechanic.

She highly doubted that he would need- or want- to know much more than that.

\- - -

She nearly called it off a half-dozen times. _I have pneumonia,_ she almost sent one day. _I just realized that I had a massive lapse in judgment_ another. 

_Mistletoe,_ she would always remind herself at the last moment, and grimly delete the message draft. 

So here she was, shivering on a metro platform in an admittedly too-thin coat and boots almost past their usefulness. 

_I’m willing to drive,_ Ben had written in a follow-up email, but that had seemed like an easy way to end up in a shallow grave in the woods. Better to take public transport under the watchful eye of the security cameras, especially considering that no one knew of her insane little plan. Even Finn had left for his own family Christmas cheerfully oblivious, with only a wink and a joking “Don’t let her Organa you into a New Year’s wedding.”

She’d tell him later, when it would be just a _guess what hijinks I got up to_ story instead of a _he’s probably going to strangle you in an alley_ cautionary tale.

Assuming this alpha showed up. He was- according to Rey’s phone- five minutes late, and as their train was due in three minutes there was a distinct chance that Rey was going to attend alone after all.

 _Well, Leia,_ she imagined herself saying, _I wanted to introduce you so badly, but he’s come down with the flu. I’m terribly sorry._

And Leia would give her that all-knowing look, smirk, and sit Rey right next to Poe at the table. Never had a more stubborn woman lived.

As she ran through a handful of other excuses in her mind ( _he’s been called to an ailing relative’s bedside; he’s a secret agent and on a mission of great importance_ ) footsteps approached.

Cardamom.

Rey turned and tilted her head back slightly, taking in the man in front of her- the man who smelled of cardamom and a tinge of cinnamon, whose broad frame looked perfectly proportioned to shelter her body from the wind, whose hands would hold her hips firmly as-

“Rey.”

Not a question, but a statement, and on his face she saw a glimpse of the same primal reckoning she herself was experiencing. “Ben,” she said a beat too late, jamming her hands into her pockets lest she reach out and slip them under his coat. _Want. Mine._ “Hi.”

The slightest of smiles curled his lips, and she wondered briefly what she smelled like to him- wondered more when he took another step forward and they stood toe to toe on the platform. She wasn’t used to feeling small, but next to him she felt the urge to rise up and-

Rey took an abrupt step back, panic at this- this loss of control, this spiral of lust and unexpected _home, mine_ \- flooding through her until she tasted copper in her mouth. She was so used to being solitary; had expected to spend her entire life as she had spent her childhood: alone, scrabbling for whatever she could claim as her own in a system that seemed design to keep her unbalanced and uncertain. Being taken under Leia’s wing was the closest she had ever come to anything like a family- and now this. 

“Don’t be afraid,” he said in a soft rumble. “I feel it, too.” 

_Truth,_ she somehow knew as he extended a hand toward her. He was speaking the truth, and he smelled like heaven, and the dry, clinical explanation of bonds she had been taught in school was meaningless with the real thing tugging at her heart. 

He kept his hand held out between them as she hesitated, long, dexterous fingers tempting her to touch. _Mine,_ she thought again, turning the word over speculatively in her mind. _Mine._

She took his hand.

Not sparks, but warmth that spread through her entire body until her nerve endings buzzed. _Alpha will take good care of me,_ a part of her whispered for the first time in her life. _A warm, safe bed. Food in my belly. Alpha’s hands on my skin._

With that thought forefront in her mind Rey tilted her head instinctively to the side, hair falling away to reveal a glimpse of a scent gland peeking out from under her coat- and then realized what, exactly, she had done when his eyes looked hungrily to the crook of her neck. 

“Sorry,” she said quickly, straightening and hunching her shoulders up. “I, umm, I’ve never reacted like… this… before.”

And she wouldn’t have, after all. That’s what all the books said: a bond only happens once, maybe twice, and maybe instantly or maybe over long acquaintance, or maybe-

“No,” Ben said after a moment, a rasp to his voice. He glanced down at their clasped hands, and she belatedly noticed the glimmer of silver peeking through his hair. He had at least one earring, maybe even two. “No gloves?” 

His hand was so warm that she had almost forgotten the cold. “No.”

With his free hand he pulled a pair from the pocket of his coat and offered them to her without a word, taking one step to the right when a gust of wind ruffled her hair. He didn’t seem to notice the cold at all, or the wind now at his back; instead a look of satisfaction settled over his features when she slipped her hands into his large gloves.

If there were words for that moment, Rey couldn’t find them. There was just the scent of cardamom, the sound of the incoming train, the wondering thought _if he looks this satisfied now what will he look like when he knots me_ , and Rey shivered from something other than the icy air. 

“This…” she finally said slowly as the train slid to a loud stop beside them, “this isn’t exactly the strictly platonic you asked for.”

He cupped her elbow gently with one hand. “No.”

“Right,” she said in a bit of a daze, a part of her still wondering how her life had been knocked so definitively askew. 

He considered her carefully, lifting his other hand and tucking a wayward lock of hair behind her ear. “Do you want me to leave, Rey?” he asked, his tone oddly neutral, as if he expected to be dismissed and was mentally preparing himself for the blow.

“ _No._ ” Sensing the moment rested on a needle’s edge Rey rushed onto the train, tugging him after her. Her entire world might be upside down but by God she had no intention of letting him leave. “No, this is just… unexpected,” she admitted, voice pitched low and a blush heating her cheeks. 

He had two earrings, she noted as they sat in the nearest seats. And an earlobe she wanted to bite. 

“Never sniffed an alpha you liked before?” he asked in a murmur, and while she might have expected a hint of wickedness in his eyes there was only a surprising vulnerability. 

_Like_ was a ridiculous concept in that particular moment. _Like_ was nothing to the way she felt about his scent. “No.” She leaned a little closer, very aware of his thigh pressed against hers. “Have you…?”

“No.” Ben caught another bit of her hair between two fingers, regarding the simple strands with something close to awe. “You smell so sweet,” he added, tone almost wistful. 

“This is going to be a difficult dinner, isn’t it?” Rey asked plainly, barely able to conceive of the idea of sitting next to him while still engaging in polite conversation. She would do something foolish like sit on his lap, or stare at him incessantly, or stumble over her words all evening long.

 _Really, newly bonded pairs should just be excused from society for a solid week,_ Leia had told her once dryly, and at the time Rey had laughed. Now- now she wanted to drown in him, tease out his secrets until she understood the hesitant softness in his manner and the way he hunched toward her. 

“Unbelievably difficult.” One of his hands settled on her knee, the other on the back of her neck. “But we’ll talk,” he promised, fingertips brushing against one of her scent glands. “After.”

And then he took in a deep breath, his forehead coming to rest against hers, and cardamom and cinnamon was all she could smell.

\- - -

Sugared lemons. Tart and clean and just sweet enough to tease him into keeping close, the tip of his nose nuzzling into her hair in all defiance to the fact that they were not the sole occupants of their train car. His phone vibrated in the pocket of his coat, likely another text from his mother asking if maybe, possibly his plans had changed and would he come home for dinner? 

_I’m working,_ he had told her in all honesty the last time she had asked him to come, and that had certainly been the truth until he had come face to face with Rey shivering as snow fell around her. One moment he had been preparing himself for an afternoon of possibly sub-par food and low-level annoyance for all and sundry, and the next his life was reshuffling itself around the living embodiment of lemon pie. 

Ben fucking _loved_ lemon pie, and he wanted her scent on his sheets as soon as humanly possible. And then her books on his already crammed bookshelves, and her clothes in the closet, and her toothbrush next to the sink.

 _Quick,_ he thought with a little bewilderment. From one to two in the matter of seconds, just like his parents had always said, and that was nowhere near as irritating as he might have guessed.

Rey pulled off her borrowed gloves and captured one of his hands in hers, running a fingertip over the lines of his palm as if she were scrying the future. “Do you do this often?” she asked after a moment, looking away from his palm to meet his eyes. “Hire yourself out as a fake boyfriend, I mean.”

“A few times.” Ben hesitated. _But never again._ “Holidays with my family have always been… stressful. I know what it’s like to be the problem child; sometimes you just need someone willing to distract attention _away_ from you.”

She laughed quietly, a teasing smile curving her mouth. “So this is your good deed for the season, then?”

“Something like that.” 

“And the rest of the year?”

“I’m a calligrapher.” The conductor announced the next stop, the words muffled. “Wedding invitations, diplomas, the occasional art piece.”

She brightened, clear interest on her face. “Will you show me?”

 _I’ll show you everything; I’ll write every grocery list in copperplate._ “I can show you some pictures on my phone,” he offered instead, pulling out his cell and quickly unlocking it, his mother’s message disappearing unread. “My last job was an engagement announcement,” he explained, pulling up the same photo he had sent the client for approval. Black ink with touches of silver, each letter crisp. 

“ _Oh._ ” Rey squeezed the hand she still held, her tone awed. “Ben, that’s beautiful.”

“Thank you,” he replied almost shyly, feeling as if every other compliment he had received for his work paled in comparison to her few words. “Tell me about your family,” he urged gently as she lifted a hand to zoom in on the names, examining the swirling letters. “What should I expect?”

_Tell me why you need a shield._

She blinked, looking momentarily disconcerted by the change in topic. “They’re not my family,” she said after a moment. “I don’t have one.”

Rey shifted her attention back to his palm. “My earliest memories are of the foster system,” she added softly. “Where we’re going- my boss and his wife have basically taken me in.”

“You love them,” he murmured, hearing real fondness in her voice. Rey nodded, cheeks pink.

“Honestly they seem to like me more than any foster parent ever did,” she said with a kind of self-deprecating humor. “They like me so much they keep trying to match me with their nephew.”

There it was. Ben forced himself not to tense at the idea of another alpha’s scent on Rey, keeping his voice calm and measured as he replied. “And he’s…?”

“Perfectly nice.” Rey shook her head, looking a little bewildered. “And at first I thought, ‘Well, a gradual bond is just as good as a quick one’, but… but I couldn’t bring myself to really want it. And now I’m afraid of disappointing them.” She shot him an almost embarrassed look. “That’s when I made up a decoy alpha.”

“I’ll be your decoy any day of the week,” he replied earnestly, and opened his mouth to say something further- and then sudden realization struck him, and with an embarrassed chuckle he asked, “What’s your last name?”

She burst out laughing. “We, uh, did get a little distracted, didn’t we?” she said with a grin. “Jacobs. Rey Jacobs.”

“I’m-”

Rey looked up as the train entered another station, shock on her face. “This is our stop,” she explained, coming quickly to her feet. “I completely lost track.”

And he knew exactly what she meant. He had no clue where he was, had no clue if they were even in the same city as before, because everything was Rey and her hand in his and the scent of sugared lemons in his nose. He barely even cared that she still didn’t know his last name, because what did it matter? She would know it soon enough, and maybe one day she would decide to take it as her own, but for now he was content to follow her out of the station and count the hours until they were finally in private.

And it was in that frame of mind- that heady, distracted state of a new bond forming- that he missed all relevant clues until he stopped beside Rey on the sidewalk and looked at their final destination.

“Ben?”

He should say something, but his breath was coming short and his mouth had gone dry and words? What were words?

“Are you okay?” Rey asked, rising to her toes with a look of concern on her face. “Do you need me to call someone?”

He coughed and finally managed to speak despite the tightness in his throat. “Here?”

“Do you know them?” A crease formed between her brows, expression shifting to puzzled. “The Solos?”

“Yeah.” He had to tell her, and he had to do so immediately. “Rey-”

And just then- _of course, fuck_ \- the front door opened with the kind of incredible timing unsurprising to find in the daughter of the two most storied stage actors of a generation. Leia Organa-Solo looked between himself and Rey and raised a single brow in surprise, clearly considering her first words. 

Nothing for it. Ben took in a breath and tucked one hand in his coat pocket, crossing his fingers. “Hi Mom,” he said with carefully hidden nerves. “Merry Christmas.”


	2. rosemary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOU GUYS, I am so delightfully overwhelmed by the response to this story! My sincere thanks to each and every one of you!

“Hi Mom.”

Whatever Ben said next was muffled as Rey considered those two words. 

_Hi Mom._

_Mom._

_Oh God._

“Ben,” Leia said, sounding faintly stunned, and Rey looked up at her newly found Alpha as the first hint of panic entered her mind. Their already clumsy story was absolutely crumbling around them, and he looked so _resigned_ \- resigned, and a little tired, and oddly she found herself remembering the way he had braced for an emotional blow right before she had pulled him onto the train. 

_Mine,_ she reminded herself firmly, and purposefully summoned her brightest smile. “We wanted to surprise you,” she told Leia, leaning into Ben’s side and refusing to be distracted by how incredibly _solid_ he was. “Merry Christmas!”

Leia pinned her with a look, and the fact that there was still any shred of surprise left in her expression told Rey just how long it had been since Ben had last made it home. “It certainly is a surprise,” she said, voice dry if a little thick. “You should-”

She swallowed, barely missing a beat. “You should come in.”

Rey had been in the Solo home at least a dozen times before, but stepping inside with Ben made her surroundings strangely new. The comfortably worn floorboards under their feet, the same pictures near the door- and as Rey slid off her coat she gave a sudden laugh, stepping closer to one wall. “Your _ears_ ,” she said with delight as she made the connection between the grinning ten-year old in front of her and the man at her side. Belatedly realizing that her exclamation might sound odd to anyone who didn’t know that they were barely bonded, she quickly added, “I love your ears.”

He gave her a skeptical look, a blush rising on his cheeks. “Rey,” he said on a sigh as he plucked her coat from her hands, his gaze drifting from her slim-fitting sweater to the crook of her neck in a way that was distinctly flustered. 

“If you can get him to actually look at a camera I would be forever appreciative,” Leia said, watching Ben as if he might disappear at any second. “He hasn’t let me take a picture of him in nearly fifteen years.”

He gave an embarrassed shrug, his shoulders remaining hunched upward slightly. “Mom-”

“He’ll let you take some today,” Rey interrupted, wrapping her arms around his waist. He blinked down at her, his free hand settling hesitantly on her back. “I want pictures of our first Christmas together.”

“Me, too,” he said after a moment, the stiffness draining from his upper body. His ears were still tinged a fascinating red- a phenomenon Rey had every intention of studying long-term- but he offered her a soft smile nonetheless. “I’d like that.”

Leia released a breath that sounded a little like a choked sob, and in one quick move grabbed Rey’s coat from Ben’s hands. “Good,” she said briskly, hanging the coat in the hall closet. “That’s good. Han!” she called, striding away swiftly as Ben stepped back to take off his own coat and hang it beside Rey’s. “Ben’s home!”

“Very funny, Princess,” Rey heard Han say gruffly, the words sounding more distant than they actually were. 

Her Ben ( _mine_ ) was very distracting in a flannel button-up, as it turned out. 

“What?” Ben asked quietly when he caught her staring. They were alone in the hall, but judging by the clamor in the living room that wouldn’t last for long.

“This is a good look,” she told him in a whisper, touching his chest lightly with her fingertips. Red plaid, soft and cozy. “A _very_ good look.”

He blushed again, averting his gaze in a manner so adorable that she wrapped a hand around the back of his neck to pull him down and-

“God, it’s a Christmas miracle.”

Reluctantly Rey released her prey, repressing the urge to sigh. “Hi, Luke!” she said as cheerfully as possible, grabbing Ben by the hand and pulling him forward. “Surprise!”

And then Leia was back with Han by her side, Maz and Chewie behind them, and everyone was talking over everyone else in that characteristic Solo household way.

 _Has he always been the quiet one?_ she found herself wondering as Leia reached up to cup Ben’s cheek in one hand, questions flying from every corner in a non-stop barrage. Rey loved the boisterousness of every Solo event, but Ben seemed simultaneously overwhelmed and unsurprised. Maybe-

Ben- who had been bending toward his mother as she commented on the length of his hair- abruptly straightened to his full height, mouth pressed into a flat line and expression grim. 

“Hey, cuz,” Poe said with a sly grin from the entrance to the living room. “What’s up?”

Everyone fell into wary silence as the two alphas regarded each other, the energy in the hall uncomfortably electric. Rey bit her lower lip. 

_Fuck._

\- - -

Ben hadn’t punched anyone since his one and only fight in high school, but as he stared at his cousin- his _rival_ \- he gave serious thought to giving it another go. 

_Just once. Just-_

Rey leaned against him, her weight unexpected and welcome. When he instinctively curved an arm around her she snuggled in, face tipped up to his. “We’re doing great, aren’t we?” she said with a smile, and he released a shaky breath at the earnest look in her eyes. She might be putting on a show for all of his relatives, but it was an honest one. “I’ve never been happier.”

“Me, either,” he murmured, almost forgetting that they had an audience until his Aunt Maz laughed with keen satisfaction. 

“I told you he’d fall hard one day, Leia.” She turned and poked Poe in the stomach, the finger of whiskey in her glass barely rippling at the movement. “Tone it down, kid. We don’t need any bloodshed on Christmas; save that shit for tomorrow.”

Poe raised his hands in seeming defeat, though there was a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “Do I look like I’m offering a challenge?”

His cousin said the words lightly, but Ben was hardly appeased. The bond was still too new, too unsettled for him to watch Poe smirk while Rey’s scent was in his nose. _Rival,_ a more primal part of his mind insisted on thinking. He-

“Hey,” Rey said softly, catching his attention and directing his gaze back to her. “We’re okay.”

There was another moment of tenuous silence, and then his father snorted. “Alphas,” he muttered, and laughed when Leia slapped him lightly on the shoulder. “You posture just as much as any of them, Sweetheart,” he teased, his gaze flicking to Ben and then away just as quickly. “Chewie, want another beer?”

And with that the group disbanded, Maz pushing Poe back into the living room as his father and Chewie made their way into the kitchen. His mother and uncle remained, the former regarding him with a cautiously optimistic look. His Uncle Luke, on the other hand, wore an expression so neutral that Ben was immediately suspicious. 

Not, he admitted to himself, that they had a stellar relationship to begin with. 

“I need to find a few things,” his mother said, touching his shoulder lightly. “You should… you should get Rey something to eat.” She flashed a smile at Rey, one that was fond and so incredibly grateful that Ben felt a little ashamed at staying away for so long. “There’s a cheese board in the living room, or if you want something else-”

“Ben probably remembers where the kitchen is,” his uncle interrupted in a bland tone. “Right, kid?”

“I have an inkling,” Ben managed, resisting the urge to snap. “Are you hungry?” he asked Rey, a little relieved at having an excuse to focus his attention on her. 

“Rey’s always hungry,” his uncle said with a short laugh, and Rey shrugged.

“Guilty,” she said, an odd note in her expression that Ben couldn’t decipher. Out of the corner of his eye Ben saw his mother jab his uncle in the ribs before grabbing his elbow. 

“You can help me carry,” his mother said crisply, and dragged her brother away.

Alone again, Ben seized the opportunity to gently pull Rey into the nearest private room: his mother’s office, dim and pin-neat. 

“Are you okay?” he asked seriously after the door was closed, his hands hovering over her hips for a brief moment before he jammed them into his pockets. “We can leave, if you like, or-”

“I’m fine.”

“Food, then?” He needed to know what, exactly, had been behind that little byplay in the hall. “I could make you a plate- get you a drink-”

“I’m fine,” she said again, and licked her lower lip in what appeared to be a nervous gesture. “So,” she said slowly, and he tried not to wince. “Ben _Solo._ ”

 _Rey Solo,_ a very unhelpful part of his mind offered, and he swallowed hard. 

“Yeah.”

\- - -

 _One day we’ll laugh about this,_ Rey thought as Ben shifted his weight from foot to foot in front of her. _We’ll tell our children about it._

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, casting a glance toward the shut door. “I wasn’t paying attention to where we were.”

 _No,_ she thought immediately, refusing to let him carry that burden alone. “And I interrupted you when you tried to introduce yourself,” she replied firmly, taking a step closer to him. “I walked the whole way on auto-pilot. I’m not mad, Ben.”

Ben still looked uncertain, an almost unnoticeable quiver to his lower lip. “Rey-”

He broke off when she lifted one hand and placed it gently against his chest, soft, thin flannel under her palm. “I’m not mad, Alpha,” she whispered, watching as his gaze sharpened and uncertainty fell away. “I think you should kiss me.”

“You do?” 

_Oh._ Two words in a low rumble and her mind fell straight into the gutter. She pressed her thighs tightly together, knowing that she was blushing terribly.

His warm hands cupped her face as he considered her carefully, a slow smile spreading over his face. “Ah. You do.”

“Yeah.”

An odd, breathy dare, that, and one he clearly liked. “Perhaps,” he murmured, bending his head close to hers, “you should specify _where._ ”

“My mouth, Ben,” she clarified, sounding a little desperate and not caring. “Kiss my mouth.”

He was close- _so_ close, his lips barely brushing against hers and her body almost shaking with anticipation- when the door creaked open and she was abruptly pulled against his chest, one of his arms tight around her lower back and her face pressed into his shoulder. A protective, possessive stance, and one she would have enjoyed more with a little warning.

“Hey, guys,” Poe said in a low tone. “Can we talk?”

Rey managed to twist just enough in Ben’s grasp to glare at the intruder. “Get out,” she hissed before Ben could speak, resisting the urge to nuzzle her cheek against the flannel he wore. “This is our hiding place.”

“A really shitty one,” he replied with a lopsided grin. “Maz is already asking where you disappeared to.”

Ben made an almost helpless sound in the back of his throat that Rey would have enjoyed _much_ more in a different context. “You go distract her then, _cousin,_ ” he said in a grumpy snarl, his breath ruffling her hair. “I’m having an important conversation with _my_ Omega-”

“Uh huh.” Poe leaned back against the door, crossing his arms. “Your Omega- your Omega of at least a month, if what Rey told Leia can be believed.”

Rey bristled even as guilt flooded through her. “I-”

Poe waved a hand dismissively, cutting her off. “Listen, if the two of you have been bonded for more than an hour I’ll swan-dive off the roof.”

After a moment of silence Ben said, his tone darkly sardonic, “An hour and a half.”

“Close enough.” Poe shrugged. “ _Clearly_ you’d both rather be knotted already and in a much more private location-”

Rey hid her heated face against Ben’s shoulder as he snorted.

“-but we’re all here now and you need to know that I’m an ally.”

Ben’s grip around her waist loosened as Rey turned her head to peer suspiciously at Poe. “ _Really?_ ”

“Really.” He sketched a quick and sloppy cross over his chest. “You are _great_ , Rey, but you smell like dish soap-”

“I do?” she asked quizzically, at roughly the same moment Ben said in a heated, offended tone, “ _What?_ ”

She looked up at Ben, a furrow forming between her brows. Ben opened his mouth, closed it, and then lifted his free hand to smooth his thumb over the crease. “Lemon pie,” he admitted in a mutter. “You smell fantastic.”

He bent and murmured a single word in her ear. “Edible.”

An odd thing, to be hungry for a person and not food. Even odder knowing that she would happily skip a meal if it meant Ben demonstrating his concept of _edible,_ preferably while pinned under what felt like a considerable amount of muscle. 

“ _As I was saying_ ,” Poe interrupted with amused patience, “you aren’t my type.” He shrugged. “Aunt Leia’s just… formidable.”

Rey considered his words, considered the past few months, and then burst into laughter, clapping her hand over her mouth in an attempt to muffle what felt a little like hysteria. “She said,” Rey managed to gasp out after a moment, “she said you were _pining._ ”

“Pining for a way out,” he agreed with a grin. “Pining for an excuse to be out of state during your next heat. I was considering prison.”

Ben mumbled something against her hair, his scent somehow increasing as his grip tightened once more. 

“Basically,” she heard Poe say as she nuzzled into warmth and cardamom, “feel free to posture if you like, Ben, but we don’t need to get into some kind of fight club tussle over-”

The door opened again, Poe barely keeping his balance. “Will we be needing the first aid kit?” Leia asked tartly, arms crossed over her chest as she surveyed them.

“I was formally ceding my claim,” Poe said quickly, an odd note in his voice as if he wanted to laugh but didn’t dare. “Is dinner ready?” he asked as he edged out of the room around her. “I’m starving.”

Leia watched him go, then turned back to her captive audience. “As thrilled as I am by this development, I would prefer if my first grandchild were conceived somewhere _other_ than my office.” Still a little tart, but overall she sounded… pleased. “Ben, come help me in the kitchen.”

“I-”

“ _You_ are ten seconds of privacy away from using my desk for unholy purposes,” she interrupted with a wry smile. “I’m claiming a mother’s privilege.”

Unwillingly Rey took a step back, ducking to escape his arm. “Go with her,” she urged when Ben gave her an uncertain look. “Please.”

And, after a moment, he nodded, reaching out to smooth a hand over her hair as he did so.

\- - -

“So,” his mother said once they were alone. “Rey.”

Ben tended to feel a little on edge in his childhood home, but he felt even more so when his mother said Rey’s name with such weight. “Disappointed you couldn’t pair her off with Poe?” he asked, a thread of bitterness in his voice. 

She raised a brow. “If you ever came home for family events,” she began, planting one hand on her hip, “I would have been able to offer Rey _two_ potential candidates. I was working with what I had.”

He couldn’t deny her logic. “Why?”

“Why play matchmaker?” She picked up a glass half-full of red wine. “Because I _like_ her, Ben. I like her a great deal, and it isn’t healthy for her to keep doing heats on her own- she looked _terrible_ after the last one-”

Abruptly he opened one of the cabinets and pulled out a wine glass of his own. Rey- _his_ Rey, their short acquaintance be damned- hurting while he had been… what? Working? At the gym? Lounging on his couch? “She won’t be alone anymore,” he muttered as he poured a healthy glass of red. “I’ll take care of her.”

“That’s obvious.” She took a sip of her wine, not looking away from him. “You still look starry-eyed over her. It’s still fresh for you- both of you.” 

“She’s-”

Ben stared down into his wine, searching for the right words. “She’s a whole sky of stars,” he said finally. “She’s every constellation.”

“Oh,” his mother said softly, and when he looked back up at her he found that she was almost teary. “Well, Rey certainly won’t lack for romance with you talking like that.” 

With a sigh she set aside her wine, reaching out to pat his cheek. “Mash the potatoes for me, hmm?”

It had been at least five years since he had last helped his mother in the kitchen, but after a few minutes they fell back into the same rhythm he remembered. The peaceful moments, the moments when he and his mother found an accord- _this_ he had missed. They worked in companionable silence, putting the final touches on the meal as Maz and Rey bustled around the dining room. 

“Do you need any help?” Rey asked once the table was set, leaning against the door-frame with a smile. She cast a significant glance upward to a carefully hung bundle of holly and mistletoe, her invitation obvious. He immediately looked to her mouth, perfectly pink and far too tempting. “Ben?”

He had taken two steps toward her when it happened: his uncle appeared and slung an arm around Rey’s shoulders, tugging her into the kitchen. “Dangerous place to linger,” Luke said with a grin, and kissed Rey’s forehead. “Want a drink, kid?”

Ben caught a glimpse of disappointment in Rey’s eyes- disappointment he shared- but she rallied admirably. “Please.”

As his uncle poured Rey a glass of wine she sidled up to Ben, cast a quick glance around the room, and then- to his shock and startled delight- grabbed his ass. 

“Everything smells wonderful,” she declared cheerfully as she moved quickly away, accepting the glass of white wine his uncle offered. “Is that rosemary? I _love_ rosemary.”

She shot him a wink from behind his mother’s back, lifting her glass to that perfect mouth. 

Eventually- _soon_ \- he would know exactly how that mouth tasted and felt under his own. 

At some point they would finally be gloriously _alone._

He winked back, hiding his smile when a blush spread across her cheeks. _Perfect._


	3. nutmeg

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all! I won't be able to have the last chapter up by Christmas, but I expect it will be up by the New Year. Hopefully everyone will still be feeling up for a holiday fic at that point. ;D

Some things, Rey knew from personal experience, took a long time to forget, assuming they could ever be forgotten. 

For Rey, one of those things was hunger. 

“Princess, sit down and stop fussing over the food.” Han leaned back in his chair, extending a hand to Leia as she began to move toward the kitchen. “There’s enough here for an army, even _with_ Ben.” 

The joke was a weak one, but it distracted Rey just enough from the full serving dishes for her heart to resume a relatively normal rhythm. She looked to her right, taking in Ben’s profile and the slight curl to his hair. After a moment he met her gaze, a small, lopsided smile gracing his face. 

“We might need more gravy,” she heard Leia say as Ben clasped her hand, his thumb caressing the curve of her palm. 

“There’s an entire _lake_ of gravy, Leia,” Luke said with a laugh.

Ben’s thumb- gentle, a little calloused- moved in a lazy circle over her skin, the look in his eyes soft and warm. “Are you okay?” he asked in a murmur as Leia said something about grabbing another bottle of wine. 

“Hungry,” she replied in a similar murmur, her stomach in knots. 

Leia sat down again with a huff more amused than irritated. “Let’s eat, then.”

This was always Rey’s least favorite part of being a guest: waiting for a meal to begin, an empty plate in front of her. She could still hear Plutt’s grunted _Sit up straight, girl,_ still remember exactly how it felt to watch him steadily work his way through a pile of food as her stomach growled. Four years removed from his home and a small part of her still expected to receive a stinging slap on the wrist whenever she took one spoonful too many. Heaping her plate full as an adult ( _Rey always has such a good appetite,_ more than one person had chuckled over the years) satisfied the scavenger she had been by necessity. 

Potatoes, prime rib, two rolls, glazed carrots. Salad and green beans. More calories in one meal than Plutt had given her in four.

Ben’s plate didn’t look too different from hers, and he barely blinked an eye at the amount of food in front of her. “Everything’s great, Mom,” he said after a minute. “Thank you.”

The way Leia watched him made Rey’s heart hurt, just a little. There was longing, there, and a depth of love that Leia wasn’t shy to show. 

Rey glanced briefly at Ben, back to Leia, at Han. At Luke, whose words had taken on an acerbic edge the moment he had seen his nephew. 

_What drove Ben away?_ she wondered as she uncharacteristically picked at her food. _What created this wedge between them all?_

“So, how did you two meet?”

Rey blinked, distracted from her thoughts. Maz smiled at her from across the table as Rey searched her mind, trying to remember _what_ , exactly, she had told Leia. 

“On a metro platform,” Ben said as she sat frozen in uncertainty. His silverware looked almost absurdly dainty in his hands.

Leia frowned. “I thought you met in a bookstore.”

Ben stilled beside her, and she more sensed than saw the glance he made in her direction. _Shit._

“I followed her there,” he said in a rush, the words practically tumbling over each other. “I scented her on the platform and, uh…”

Han snorted, his mouth curving into a wry grin, but Leia’s frown only deepened. “ _Ben,_ I taught you better than to _stalk_ people-”

“I-” Ben half-heartedly tried to interject, his face gone unnaturally pale even for him, but Chewie talked over him.

“Maz followed me two city blocks before catching my attention.”

“Because you’re so damn _tall_ ,” Maz replied with a laugh. “I practically had to tackle you.”

Rey found herself watching Luke, who was smiling grimly into his wine glass. “Figures,” he muttered.

 _I like Luke,_ Rey reminded herself as she instinctively stiffened with irritation. She set down her fork on her plate in lieu of clutching it like a weapon. “Ben-”

“It’s okay,” Ben murmured, his tone casual even as he shredded a roll in a suspiciously nervous fashion.

“Eh, Ben always was quiet.” Han’s words were gruff, but Rey saw him shoot Luke a quick, cutting look. “That doesn’t make him a stalker.”

Luke sat up straighter. “I-”

“I love these potatoes,” Poe interjected hurriedly. “Aunt Leia, did you add crème fraîche this year?”

Ben began brushing crumbs off his long fingers. “Is it always like this?” she whispered in his ear, and the corner of his mouth that she could see quirked slightly upward as he gave a terse nod. 

Before Ben, Rey had considered the Solo family to be damn near perfect, matchmaking aside. Easy to do so when they had pulled her so effortlessly into their boisterous circle, treating her as if she had always been there and always _would_ be there, fulfilling every idle fantasy she had entertained as a child. 

After Ben… well.

_They never told me they had a son._

The pictures were there, at least up to a certain age. Rey had never asked- but then, it would have been rude (or at least odd) to quiz Leia and Han about every photograph in the house. 

Maybe Ben’s absence was why they had seized on her with such fervor.

Rey wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about that.

“This is perfect, Mom,” he was saying as her thoughts continued to run in circles. “Prime rib has always been one of my favorites.”

“Which is why she makes it every Christmas.” Luke looked to be ignoring the glare Leia was leveling on him. “Just in case you deign to bless us with your presence.”

Ben’s jaw tensed. “I usually have to work.” 

“You stopped working for Snoke two years ago,” Luke pointed out with the expression of someone wading into a long-awaited debate. “Just because he taught you to use every billable hour-”

“Snoke wasn’t the one who taught me to work through holidays.”

A beat of silence as they all absorbed Ben’s brittle tone- a tone that Rey suspected hid a great deal of pain- and then Han grumbled, “He’s right about that. Calm down, Luke.”

“I-”

“Carrots,” Leia interrupted firmly, picking up the bowl in question and thrusting it toward her brother. “You look like you could use some more.” 

She directed one last glare in his direction, then turned back to the rest of the table with a look of studied calm. “Poe, sweetheart, what did you think of that play you saw last week?”

Rey missed whatever Poe had to say about Oscar Wilde, distracted by Ben’s hand curving gently over her thigh. “I’m sorry,” he murmured in her ear, the words barely audible. 

Eventually she would understand his family. Eventually she would understand him.

Until then, she would resist the urge to snarl at Luke for poking at wounds that had clearly never healed. 

\- - -

His mother went on a full-out holiday offensive after dinner, deploying eggnog with the ruthlessness of a general taking a battlefield by storm. She also- Ben noted, his mind a little fuzzy from alcohol- herded his uncle away from him at every possible opportunity. 

“I think this is triple-spiked,” Rey whispered with a giggle after plopping down onto his lap, eggnog sloshing dangerously near the rim of her glass. “I really- _really_ \- don’t think it was this powerful last year.”

“It probably wasn’t.” He nuzzled his nose into her hair, ignoring his mother and her camera on the other side of the room. “Mom’s sedating the lot of us.”

Rey was loose-limbed and cuddly when tipsy, and even the threat of a potential eggnog spill couldn’t dissuade him from keeping her close. “Having a family isn’t easy, is it?” she mumbled into his shirt, sounding as if she were considering an unknown subject from a new angle. 

“No.” He closed his eyes, breathing in sugared lemons and nutmeg. “I’m sorry that this has been so weird.”

“It has been weird.” She twisted away, leaning into the arm he had hooked around her waist in order to deposit her glass on the floor. “I’d go through weirder for you.”

“Yeah?”

She gave him a sweet smile, pushing a strand of hair away from his face. “Might scratch out your uncle’s eyes, though.”

He did his best not to laugh, emitting a strangled kind of cough instead. “You would do that for me?”

“Apparently.” She touched one finger to his chin. “I need some water.”

“We probably both do.”

“I love how warm you are.”

He pressed his forehead to hers, mouth curving into a smile. “All for you, Rey.”

She let out a hum, hooking her fingers in the collar of his shirt. His mother was likely getting an entire album’s worth of pictures from this particular encounter, and he hardly cared. “There was _a lot_ of rum in that eggnog.”

“I’ll get some water for you,” he said softly, carefully shifting her off his lap so that he could stand. “Maybe a snack?”

“Some of that aged gouda?”

Eventually he would understand why just asking for some cheese would put that tentative note in her voice. “As you wish.”

The kitchen was empty when he entered, but as he fixed a plate for Rey footsteps sounded behind him. 

“Hey, kid.”

He looked up from his carefully arranged circle of crackers and thin slices of gouda, reaching over to pick up a small bunch of grapes. “Hey, Dad.”

Han leaned against the counter next to him, a half-drunk bottle of beer dangling from one hand. “Your uncle can be an ass sometimes,” he said bluntly, surprising a dry laugh from Ben. “He’ll get over it.”

“He’s protective of Mom,” Ben said in reply, aiming for a dismissive tone and falling short of the mark. “I know.”

“Doesn’t mean he isn’t an ass.” Han took a swig of his beer, then began to pick at the label with his thumbnail. “I’ve missed you, kid.”

Ben stared down at the plate, his hands flat against the counter. “I’ve missed you, too.”

His parents had traveled for work throughout his childhood, and had done so often. He could count on one hand the number of years _both_ of them had been present for any major holiday. _This has to get done,_ his mother had told him more than once as she smoothed a hand over his hair. _People are depending on me, Ben._

It hadn’t, then, seemed odd when Snoke had worked Ben to the bone, barely giving him a weekend off, let alone federal holidays. As his parents had settled into semi-retirement, Ben had barely been able to find the time to speak with his family at all… and by the time he had finally left Snoke’s employ, emotionally wrecked and his life in upheaval, the sense that all his bridges had been burned was a powerful one.

“Rey’s a good egg.” A quarter of the label lay shredded on the kitchen tile. “We enjoy having her around.”

“I won’t keep her from you.”

“Didn’t think you would.” Han placed the bottle on the counter. “You can come home whenever you want, Ben.”

Not a pointed comment, or a badgering one, but words spoken in the quiet tone his father only used in times of great emotion. “Because of Rey?”

“Because of you.” His father crossed his arms over his chest, the gesture turned vulnerable in the way his hands cupped his elbows. “We were proud when you left Snoke. We _are_ proud of the life you’ve made since.” He shrugged, his expression turning tired, even a little embarrassed. “We made you wait for us. It’s only fair we wait for you.”

Tears pricked the corners of Ben’s eyes, and he muttered the only reply he could manage. “Okay.” He paused to take a breath. “Thanks.”

His father turned and opened one of the cabinets. “Better hydrate Rey before your mother gets more eggnog into her,” he said, handing Ben two empty glasses. “I’m going to go check on Luke and make sure Leia hasn’t locked him in a closet.”

Ben took his time filling the glasses, waiting until his breathing regulated before carefully carrying his load into the living room where Maz and Poe were singing _Joy to the World_ enthusiastically if somewhat drunkenly. Rey- laughing from her spot on the armchair- clapped her hands when he presented her snack.

“ _Thank you._ ” She smiled up at him, holding the plate as if it were something precious. “Give me a kiss.”

Tempted as he was to aim for her mouth, he pressed his lips to her forehead instead before settling on the floor at her feet. 

“ _Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea,_ ” Poe and Maz sang, joined by Chewie’s baritone, and Ben mouthed the next words along with them as he leaned his head against Rey’s knee. 

_Joy to you and me._

\- - -

In comparison to dinner the evening was fucking delightful, at least according to Rey’s scale of horrible holiday interactions. She generally wasn’t one for using alcohol as a social lubricant- hard to be properly wary with her head muzzy, and Rey knew better than most the necessity of keeping her wits about her at all times- but with Ben close by she felt safe. 

And she still felt safe, even after the alcohol wore off and Ben whispered in her ear about gathering their coats and catching the last train. 

“I’ll see you home,” he murmured. “I won’t stay.”

There was a sweetness to him unexpected in an alpha, or maybe that was just the way most alphas were with their omegas. “You will stay,” she murmured back, delighting at the wash of color over his cheeks. 

Leia must have been watching them for any sign of flight, because the moment they stood she waved them into the hall. “Neither of you are going out into that storm,” she said staunchly once they were in private. “I made up Ben’s old bed for you.”

Truthfully, the _last_ thing Rey wanted to do was walk out into the dark and swirling snow- though she would, of course, for Ben. Making him stay the night would be unkind, forcing him to potentially sit across the breakfast table from his uncle even more so. She opened her mouth to carefully reject Leia’s offer.

“Okay.”

Startled, she looked up at him, barely noticing that Leia also looked a bit surprised by his quick capitulation. Ben ran a hand through his hair in an almost nervous gesture. “We’re both tired,” he said in excuse, and then offered his mother a slight smile. “And I don’t want to argue with you for the next half-hour.”

Leia laughed briskly, reaching up to pat his cheek. “Smart boy. Go get some sleep; I’m going to pour everyone else into bed.”

Without offering a good night to the others they stole away, Rey walking hand in hand with Ben up the stairs to a previously unexplored room. 

“You were a space geek,” she noted as she surveyed the walls of his childhood bedroom, allowing herself a luxurious stretch of fatigue-leadened limbs. Posters of planets, nebulae, galaxies. “I used to sneak out at night to look at the stars.”

Shivering under a thin blanket, huddled on the ground out of sight of any windows. Picking out constellations in a whisper. 

“I dreamed about space, as a kid.” He stood behind her, one hand warm against her upper back. “Flying through the stars in a sleek black ship. Wielding a glowing sword on alien planets. For a while I thought about becoming an astronaut, but-”

He chuckled quietly. “-but turns out astronauts aren’t space ninjas.”

She laughed, yielding easily when he pulled her gently against his chest. “Never would have guessed.” Blinking sleepily, Rey slid her fingertips over the back of the hand resting against her stomach, tracing the shape of his wrist and stopping at the cuff of his sleeve. “We have a lot to learn about each other.”

“Yeah.” His hand flexed slightly, large and fascinating. “I’m looking forward to it,” he continued softly. “I want to know you, the dark and the light.”

“I want that, too.” She hesitated, then consciously chose to continue. “Though some of it _is_ dark, Ben.”

He made a quiet, soothing sound and pressed a kiss against her hair. “On your own time. No need to rush.”

She turned in his arms, looking up at him. “When I was ten I was placed with a man named Thomas Plutt… he liked being called _Uncle_ Plutt…”

Rey stopped, recognizing a stormy quality to his expression. “He didn’t molest me,” she said flatly. “He just underfed me.”

Ben didn’t look any happier. “Rey-”

“I’m here now. _Here,_ ” she repeated, cupping his cheek. “I’m just… very appreciative of food. Maybe a bit weird about it, sometimes.”

Several years worth of therapy had gotten her to that point, and Rey had never regretted the money spent. 

He considered her words for a long moment, one hand rubbing her back. “I… I kind of want to feed you now,” he mumbled. “By hand.”

She smiled, finding the idea an attractive one. “That sounds very alpha of you.”

“I don’t want to step on your toes.” His fingertips slid over the curve of her cheek, Rey’s eyelashes fluttering at the sensation. “You’ll tell me if I start becoming overbearing?”

Rey sighed a little- happily- and leaned into his hand. It was difficult to think when he touched her like that. “Yeah.”

“Because the last thing I want is to hurt you.”

“Yeah.” 

“I just may spend the rest of my life trying to tempt you with the best food I can find.”

Tempted by what little skin she could see, she lightly touched the hollow of his throat. “We’ll learn each other, bit by bit,” she murmured. “In every way.”

He bent his head toward her, the ends of his hair ticking her skin. “Do you want me to sleep on the floor?”

“No.” As she had done only hours before she wrapped her hand around the back of his neck, lifting her face to his. “I’m sober, and I want you to share the bed with me.”

He closed his eyes, releasing a breath. “I’d really like that.”

 _Beautiful,_ Rey thought as she took in long, dark eyelashes against pale skin. _Beautiful, and mine._

Lifting to her toes, she pressed a gentle kiss at the spot where the side of his nose and the delicate skin beneath one eye met.

“Rey?”

“Your skin is so soft.” She kissed his cheek, feeling the heat of his blush against her lips. “You are a very handsome man, Ben.”

His cheeks turned from pink to red, the color spreading to the tips of his ears. “You have all the looks in this equation,” he mumbled, his expression indisputably sincere. “My lovely, lovely Rey.”

Rey had been called scrawny and plain and all manner of adjectives over the years, but never _lovely._ “You think I’m pretty?”

“ _Very._ ” He pulled her a little closer. “The moment I saw you on the platform- scented you- it was like my gravity shifted.” 

“Me, too,” she admitted quietly. 

He considered her for a long moment, brushing the backs of his fingers over her cheek. “May I kiss you?”

“ _Please._ ”

Rey would have welcomed any kind of kiss from him, but the one he shared with her was seemingly calculated to turn her into a trembling mess. Soft, almost tentative, the tip of his tongue stroking against hers _just_ so- and behind it all the kind of restraint that promised far more fervent kisses in her future.

“Monster,” she whispered teasingly when he pulled away, and he laughed, a sheepishly pleased smile on his face. 

“Yes.”

“I expect many more kisses tomorrow.”

“Bossy, aren’t you?” He dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. “I like it.” Another kiss, right at the corner of her mouth. “But now we need to sleep.”

Leia had left a pile of clothing on the dresser and two new toothbrushes in the attached bathroom, and after they had both changed Rey laughed at the image they presented. Her in boxers and a baggy t-shirt, him in sweatpants and a tank top just a little too tight. 

“I joined a gym,” he said in explanation, a new wash of pink on his cheeks as she openly eyed the way his clothing stretched over muscle and the bulge between his legs. “I- Rey, you can’t look at me like that, not in my parents’ house.”

Amused, she plopped down onto the bed, patting the space beside her. “Come and cuddle up then, Solo,” she said teasingly. “I won’t grope you after the lights are off.”

Not that night, at least.

The bed was barely big enough for Ben, let alone for the two of them together, but after a few minutes of laughing negotiations Rey found herself curled in his arms with her back against his chest. After years of searching for just the right number of blankets, his body heat was a welcome luxury. 

“Perfect,” he said with a kind of wonder. She felt him nuzzle his nose into her hair, heard him mutter, “You smell so fucking good.”

“So do you.”

“Will you spend tomorrow with me?” He sounded almost wistful. “No pressure, just…”

“Yes.” God, yes, and preferably sans clothing. She spoke the next words lovingly, the first time of what would hopefully be many. “Good night, Ben.”

His arm tightened around her. “Good night.” His voice was a pleasant, soothing rumble, as much felt as heard. “My Rey.”


	4. ginger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all SO much for your encouragement! This has been a wild ride, and I am so glad that you all enjoyed it along with me.
> 
> I'm never quite sure where the boundary between mature and explicit lies when it comes to smut, so I changed the rating just in case. ;D

Falling asleep had been difficult, and not because he was under his parents’ roof for the first time in years. The reason for his insomnia had lain under his arm, soft and sweet and utterly distracting. Rey, at least, had managed to drift off with ease, murmuring something before she did so about cardamom cookies. 

When he did sleep, he dreamed of her- and his dreams were not chaste.

It was not a surprise, then, that he woke up hard and _needing,_ his hips pressed firmly against the curve of her ass and a hand cupping one perfect breast. 

“If you move,” Rey said sleepily, sounding barely awake, “I will be very unhappy.”

“If I don’t,” he murmured back, “I’ll have you naked and on your belly in short order.”

“Hmm.” A pause. “We probably do want more privacy for our first time.”

With a muffled groan he rolled onto his back, biting his lower lip when he heard her quiet, disgruntled snarl. She followed, leaning over him with her mussed hair falling around her face. The grumpy set of her mouth melted away the moment their eyes met, replaced by an almost shy smile. “Hi.”

His need mellowed slightly, shifting from immediate lust to a more patient desire. “Hi.”

“I think that was the best I’ve ever slept.”

She was saying a great deal in that one seemingly idle comment. _Safe,_ he knew instinctively, pleased by the realization. _I make her feel safe._

“I never thought that I would actually _like_ sleeping with another person,” she added, one hand curving over his bicep.

He smiled at that admission. “Me, neither.” 

“Would you like to try it again tonight?”

Ben imagined her tucked in his bed, hair spread over his pillows. “Yes.”

A flash of a bright grin, her expression briefly turning predatory in a way that delighted him and made his breath grow short. “May I tell you what I would like?” she asked, fingertips stroking his inner arm. 

Even the light pressure of the blankets against his erection was suddenly almost too much. “Yes.”

“I’d like to go home with you, and I’d like for you to knot me.” There was a tinge of uncertainty in her eyes. “If you consent, of course. If you’re not comfortable with-”

“I consent.” Heartily, with every fiber of his being.

Uncertainty was replaced with amusement. “Oh.” 

And then the hand that was on his arm slipped under the covers and settled gently, _lightly_ on his cock, only a thin layer of fabric between them, and he came with a strangled gasp and a sharp snap of his hips upward. 

“ _Oh._ ”

Her voice, not his, though it took him more than a few seconds to make the distinction. She was wide-eyed and flushed with arousal, smelling so fucking delicious that if a fist hadn’t thumped on the bedroom door his mouth and fingers would have been between her thighs in a matter of moments. 

“Breakfast is almost ready, lovebirds.”

Poe.

He still might punch Poe.

Rey’s gaze flicked to the door and then back to him as her hand left his body. “Do I need to apologize?” she asked quietly.

“ _No._ ” In one quick move he was over her, knees bracketing her hips and hands to either side of her head. “I’m going to show my appreciation. Later.” 

Repeatedly. 

If she kept staring at him like that- like he was her own personal constellation, her own sea of stars- he would kiss her, and if he kissed her there was no guarantee they would make it out of that room anytime soon. He put distance between them, feeling a blush heat his face as he finally noticed just how much of a mess he had made of himself. 

“Would you like to use the bathroom first?”

Rey still had that star-gazer quality to her expression, but a tiny smile snuck in as she curled up on her side. “No. Go ahead.” She wrapped her arms around a pillow- his pillow- clutching it close to her chest. “I’ll wait.”

\- - -

_I don’t think I can eat._

Rey turned that thought over in her mind, muffling her laughter in the pillow she held. She always wanted to eat- _always_ \- but she had apparently found something even more fascinating than food.

Ben, aroused and sleepy.

Ben coming at the touch of her hand, his scent spiking with the stutter of his hips.

Ben, caging her in with his body and promising to show his _appreciation._

“I’m never going to be alone again,” she whispered to herself as the bathroom door opened.

“Hmm?”

Ben- shirtless, his hair damp from an impressively quick shower- lifted an inquisitive brow. 

“I’m never going to be alone again,” she repeated at normal volume, hungrily taking in his bare chest with what she suspected was a proprietary air.

He picked up his shirt from the day before, expression turning almost painfully neutral. “Is that okay?”

“It’s wonderful.”

The set of his shoulders relaxed, a relieved smile curving his mouth. “No, then.” He shrugged on the shirt and began to button it. “Neither of us have to be alone anymore.”

“You’ve felt very alone, haven’t you?” Rey asked as she slid out of bed, leaving the pillow behind. His fingers paused in their work as she approached. “Like me.”

“Yes.” He dropped his hands to his sides. “A lot of it was my fault, but-”

“-but not all of it.” Rey lifted her hands to finish what he had started, slipping buttons one by one into accompanying buttonholes. “I can tell that much.”

“How?” he asked in a low voice, sounding genuinely quizzical.

“I’m not sure, really. I just know.” She lifted her face to his, laying her hands against his chest. “What can you tell about me?”

“You’re brilliant,” he said almost immediately, and shrugged when she gave a surprised laugh. “My mother has never been one to suffer fools, and she loves _and_ respects you. You’re empathetic. You draw people into your orbit like a small sun.”

Rey wasn’t quite sure what to say. “All that?” she finally managed, feeling a slow wave of arousal drag at her limbs. 

Ben’s gaze sharpened, his voice dropping to a rumble. “And more. You-”

He paused, taking in a deep breath that clearly failed to calm him. “You need to get dressed.”

“We should skip breakfast.”

She said the words without really thinking about them, knowing only that she was utterly incapable of sitting down and making polite conversation in her current state. 

“Get dressed.” Ben gently turned her toward the bathroom, his hands curved over her shoulders. “We have a train to catch.”

\- - -

In retrospect Ben couldn’t remember what he had told his mother when they had made their hurried exit, or what he might have promised, but he _did_ remember her look of satisfaction as she saw them out the door. He’d be getting a text or an email, he was sure, and could only hope that he hadn’t done something foolish like promise a grandchild within the next calendar year. 

Though there would be children, if Rey wanted them.

He hoped she would want them.

The train ride was interminable. The four block walk to his apartment took an age. Even the elevator ride to his floor seemed abnormally slow- and then he got her inside his home and his better self came to the fore. He couldn’t just toss her over his shoulder without ceremony and carry her off to his bedroom. He had to take care of her, make her comfortable; his most alpha urges demanded it.

“I’ll make pancakes.”

She blinked in confusion as he dropped his coat to the floor, not even bothering to take the time to hang it in the closet. “Do you like pancakes? Or I could make you an omelet-”

“You want to make me food? Now?”

To his relief she didn’t sound disappointed. That star-gazer look was back as she stood in his living room in her coat and his gloves, cheeks still pink from the cold. Remembering what she had confided the night before, he renewed his vow that she would never go hungry again. 

Besides, they were alone. They had _time_ \- and if anyone knocked on the door, they would simply ignore the intrusion. 

“I do want to make you food. Now.”

“Oh.” Rey stared at him for a moment longer before shrugging out of her coat. “How about a sandwich?” She draped her coat over the back of an armchair, then grabbed his and dropped it on top. “Sandwiches are fast.”

She added the gloves to the top of the pile. “Also portable. And-”

She gave a surprised and surprisingly quiet shriek when he swept her up in his arms. “Ben?”

“What do you like in your sandwiches?” he asked as he carried her into the small kitchen, where he deposited her gently on a counter. “Ham and cheese okay?”

“I’ll eat anything.”

Far too earnest a reply for his comfort. He glanced at the way she clutched the lip of the counter and decided not to quiz her on preferences for the time being, focusing instead on rummaging through his fridge.

Rey accepted his offering with a smile, looking as if she had never been handed a better meal. “Do you work from home?” she asked before taking her first bite.

“I do.” Hours upon hours of careful, meditative work. “The second bedroom is almost the size of a closet, but it suits me.”

“Is it going to be a problem if I keep working for your father?”

Ben froze, sandwich halfway to his mouth. “No. No, not at all.”

Rey was calm, but there was a caution to her expression as if certain possibilities were making themselves known. “Some alphas don’t like their omegas working.”

“Some alphas are idiots,” he said plainly, upset by the very idea. Caging Rey in, tamping down all that bright-eyed cleverness- it would be a crime. “I don’t care if you decide to join a trapeze act in a traveling circus.” Ben considered the words as Rey’s caution melted away and she gave him a blinding grin. “I mean, it would be nice if you took me with you,” he added. “I can work anywhere.”

“I will keep that in mind, though I don’t think I’ll be performing in the Big Top anytime soon.” She ate another bite of her sandwich, swinging her feet slightly. 

“And I, uh-”

Ben took in a breath, steeling himself. “I think it’s time I started going home more often.” 

He held her gaze as she scrutinized him. Seeming to approve of whatever she saw, Rey nodded and replied, “Well, you won’t have to do it alone. Not unless you want to.”

“Thank you.”

She ate a few more bites before speaking again. “I’m clean, by the way,” she told him matter-of-factly. “Not that I’ve done much of anything. And I’m on birth control.”

“Same.” He blushed when she shot him another grin. “Not on birth control, I mean. Clean.”

They finished eating in silence, his blush subdued by the time she brushed off her fingers and hopped down from the counter. “Where is your bathroom?”

“Down there, last door on the left.” 

When the door clicked shut behind her he shot down the hall and into his bedroom to tidy what little mess there was. _At least the sheets are clean,_ he thought with relief as he shoved a basket of yet-to-be-folded laundry into his closet. There was that small mercy. At least he had cleaned within the past few days. At least-

“I should have worn nicer underwear.”

Ben looked up from straightening the covers and found Rey lingering in the doorway, her sweater dangling from one hand. A camisole the color of spring green with a small hole near the hem hugged her figure, barely brushing the waistband of her jeans. 

“I wasn’t exactly expecting anyone would see it,” she continued with a hint of self-deprecating amusement, taking a step into the room. Somewhere along the line she had taken off her shoes. “Not that I have anything particularly exciting. I suppose I should look into that.”

“This is pretty exciting,” he managed, mouth dry. “But if you’ve changed your mind…?”

“No,” she said easily. “You?”

“No.”

“Okay, then.” She dropped her sweater on the dresser and made her way to the bed, stopping on the opposite side from him. “How do you want to do this?”

Ben had enough personal experience with nerve-induced bravado to hear it in her voice, though she hid it well. He sat, body turned toward her, and patted the space next to him. “Sit down? If you like.”

She did not walk around the bed; instead she crawled across it and knelt beside him. “It was different earlier,” she admitted unexpectedly. “We obviously weren’t going to do anything-”

Rey blushed and amended, “Not much of anything, anyway. I felt very brave.” Her gaze briefly slipped down to his lap. “Clearly.”

Deciding she might like having the advantage of height he lay back, one arm under his head. “I refuse to accept an apology for that.”

“I wasn’t planning on offering one.” She lay a hand against the side of his face, leaning slightly over him. “Do you ever grow a beard?”

“Not often. Would you like me to?”

“I don’t know.” She slid her fingertips along the line of his jaw, over roughly a day’s worth of growth. “I might need to see my options before I decide. Unless you have strong opinions…?”

“Clean-shaven by habit. Usually.” He was perfectly happy to compromise on facial hair, at least to a certain extent. “I’m willing to experiment.”

“Okay.”

She leaned in closer, brushing her thumb over his bottom lip. “Yesterday… you said I smelled edible.”

Still some nerves, but there was a warmth in her gaze he couldn’t resist. “I did.”

Rey smiled, soft and sweet. “Show me.”

\- - -

“What should I call you?”

Rey gave Ben a befuddled look at that particular response to her request- a response that wasn’t so much a question as him pondering aloud. “What?”

He sat up, one hand reaching out to pull down the covers. “Darling?” His mouth curved into a smile so profoundly intimate her breath caught in her throat. “Beloved?”

“Yours.”

The word slipped out unexpectedly and she scrambled to explain. “I’ve never had anyone and I’ve never _been_ anyone’s anything, so if you’re mine I’m yours.”

His other hand settled on her waist, fingers slipping under her camisole. “Mine,” Ben said quietly, his gaze intent. “My Rey.”

“My Ben.”

She would have taken a moment to consider the impact of those words- the way they settled contentedly in her heart, all loving possession- but then his mouth slanted over hers with all the fervency they hadn’t shared the night before. Cardamom and cinnamon, a hand carding through her hair, the taste of Ben on her tongue. Cool sheets under her back.

“Good?” he asked in a low tone as she blinked up at him. He was so _big_. Enormous. Perfect. “Rey?”

“Good.” 

He pressed a kiss just above her scent gland and something in her relaxed with a veritable purr. “Good,” she murmured again, wriggling impatiently as he licked her skin. “Ben-”

“You’re beautiful.” His fingers were on the button closure of her jeans. “I keep expecting this to be a dream; that I’ll wake up alone and spend the rest of my life with inexplicably lustful feelings for lemon pie.”

There might come a day when his compliments wouldn’t fill her with dizzying joy, but she didn’t foresee that happening any time soon. “For me it would be my favorite cardamom cookies,” she said, lifting her hips as he began to pull down her jeans. “I only have them at Christmas,” Rey continued. “It will be interesting to see if I can eat one without becoming aroused, now.”

“We’ll experiment,” he said, bending to press a kiss to one knee. “You eat cookies, I’ll eat you.”

Heat flooded her cheeks. “That doesn’t sound like much of an experiment.”

“I’ll write up a lab report and everything.” He slid his fingertips up her inner thighs, the touch light and leaving her quivering. Ben lifted his head, a small smile on his face. “Pumpkins, sweetheart?”

“They were clean.”

“And now they’re wet.” He looked awed as he spoke those quiet words. “For me.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “I should probably take them off.”

Ben drew them down, his expression turning heated and intense as she opened her thighs, her own need overruling any lingering shyness. She wanted to ask him to undress- only fair, after all- but then her legs were draped over flannel-clad shoulders and he was _there_ , breath hot against sensitive flesh, and his tongue-

 _Good tongue,_ she thought in a muddle, a moan escaping her lips as he licked her languidly. One muscled arm pinned her hips in place. “Good… _Ben._ ”

The tip of his tongue flicked her clit. “Ben!”

He lifted his head, his eyes dark and a hint of a smile on his lips. “You deserve to be savored. Unless you want me to stop?”

“ _No._ ”

“Well, then.”

There was very little thought, after that.

As she fought to catch her breath, trembling from the aftershocks rippling through her, Ben pressed a kiss just above her mons. “Absolutely edible,” he murmured, sounding ridiculously pleased with himself. “Perfectly delicious.” He slid his hands under her camisole, rising to his knees. “I knew you would be sweet.”

Rey blinked up at him, mind fuzzy. “You are overdressed,” she pointed out, words muffled by the camisole as he drew it over her head. “Very overdressed.”

Ben threw her camisole behind him, turning his attention to her bra. “In a minute. Is the clasp in the back?”

Rey sat up, still a little wobbly. “I’ll deal with the clasp; you strip.”

He began to unbutton his shirt only to pause when she tossed her bra to the side and flopped back down, his eyes on her breasts. “Strip,” she said firmly.

“Bossy.” He was smiling as he said the word, still smiling when he left the bed and quickly divested himself of his clothes. Perfect and muscled and _hers,_ absolutely hers.

Also, proportional. Excellently so.

He rejoined her on the bed, reclining on his side as she rolled to face him. “Are you still good?” he asked, cupping her cheek. “We could stop now.”

“I’m good.” Rey wriggled closer until they were chest to chest, his cock hard against her stomach. She kissed him, sweet and slow, and then nuzzled the tip of her nose against his. “You?”

“Very good.” He seemed content to just stroke her hair at that moment, looking as if he were fixing her in his memory- and then his hand slid lower, fingers stroking between her legs. “You feel ready, sweetheart.”

She could practically feel the rumble of his voice inside of her as one finger circled her clit, the touch teasingly light. Hitching one knee over his hip she took him in hand. “I am ready.”

It probably would have been easier if she were on her back, or if he were on his, but there was a sweetness to meeting him in the middle like this, the sensitive skin of her belly pressed to his as he gently eased himself inside. That sweetness became heat as every molecule in her body seemed to attune to _alpha alpha alpha,_ any hint of discomfort from his entrance swept away as he rocked into her. 

“Sweet Rey.” Practically a purr, and she wanted that sound in her ear for the rest of her life, wanted those lips pressed against her neck as he saw her through every heat yet to come. “My sweet Omega.” 

She opened her eyes to find him watching her, expression rapt. “Tell me if you need to stop.”

“Don’t you dare.” Rey rolled her hips against his with a snarl, clutching him even tighter with the arm she had around his back. “My Alpha. _Mine._ ”

Ben chuckled, one hand grasping her thigh. “Good.”

He was controlled, so very controlled until he wasn’t, thrusts quickening with an irregular rhythm that rendered her breathless as he murmured a litany of disjointed praise for _my Omega my sweet my perfect my_ until he sucked in a gasp with a final thrust.

Rey had thought that the talk of omegas coming on a knot was an exaggeration. 

It was not an exaggeration.

When her mind finally cleared she found herself sprawled over Ben’s body, a hand stroking lazily up and down her back. His knot still kept them locked together, an odd but incredibly pleasant sensation. “Good,” she murmured, other and better words lost to her. “Good Alpha.”

“Good Omega.” His fingertips dragged up her spine, causing a satisfied shiver to ripple through her body. “Very good.”

After a few minutes more she let out a satisfied sigh and folded her hands under her chin, arranging herself as best she could to meet his gaze. “Hi.”

There was still a spark of alpha-ness in his eyes, but the flush of pink over his cheeks was purely Ben. “Hi.”

“Do you think we could do this a lot? Because I suspect I’m going to be a little insatiable.”

He laughed, brushing mussed hair away from her face. “Yes. Yes, please. That was…”

Ben paused, looking almost dazed. “That was _amazing._ ” His attention arrowed in on her again, expression turning soft and tender. “Do you still want to stay the night?”

“Yes.” She wanted to bite his earlobe- she had practically promised herself the pleasure within two minutes of meeting him- but she couldn’t quite reach. “My next heat is in about a month,” she offered instead. Useful information, and for once in her life she was looking forward to the experience. 

“I’ll be there.” He continued stroking her back, lulling her into a sleepy state. “Ready and willing.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” A caress at the base of her spine. “What are you doing for New Year’s Eve?”

Rey closed her eyes, a slow smile curving her mouth. “Introducing you to my friends. Kissing you at midnight. Being knotted by my Alpha in the early hours of the new year.”

She peeked and was rewarded with a full-out grin. “Good plan,” he murmured. “A very, very good plan.”

\- - -

“You can wear my clothes.”

Rey swatted playfully at Ben as she walked past him toward her bedroom, only to be detained by his arm around her waist. “You can wear my shirts,” he promised as he pulled her against his chest, his smile teasing. “Or nothing. I can keep you warm in nothing, Rey.”

“That is not in doubt,” she said in reply, grinning. “But we came all this way, so I’m going to pack-”

Out of sight the front door opened, the unexpected noise distracting them both. 

“Rey?” Finn called, followed by a thump as he presumably put down his bag. “My mother sent gingerbread, and she’s found an alpha she wants you to meet, so-”

He appeared at the end of the hall and stopped, taking in the two of them together. “Everything okay, Peanut?” he asked after a moment, a flicker of confusion on his face.

“Everything’s perfect.” She leaned against Ben, wrapping her arms around him, and felt a sudden surge of mischievousness. “This is Ben,” she announced with a sly grin. “I hired him to pretend to be my Alpha, but it turns out he _is_ my Alpha, so I’m going to keep him.”

Ben made an odd, strangled noise, but Finn just leveled a long look on her… and then sighed with relief. “At least you weren’t Organa-d into anything.” 

Finn took a step back at Ben’s unexpected bark of laughter, one brow raised. “Rey?”

“He’s actually Leia’s son.”

“ _Rey!_ ”


	5. epilogue: honey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I was done with these soft nerds but it turns out I had a little bit left. Happy New Year, everyone! Thank you so much!

Ben prided himself on being an attentive mate and husband, or at least as attentive as he could be without Rey gently pointing out that maybe, _maybe_ he didn’t need to spend every possible moment within six feet of her. _Most of the time I love it,_ she had explained early in their relationship. _But I need some space the few days leading up to my heat._

So on those days he went without cuddling as she bustled around their apartment in nesting mode, helping her clean when she allowed and preparing heat-friendly foods when she didn’t. He stayed carefully on his half of the bed when they slept, hoping he wouldn’t curl around her in his sleep and wake up with an armful of grumpy Rey. He rejoiced in her smiles and the brief kisses she gave him, fully aware that the pre-heat period for omegas was notorious for low-level discomfort as hormones changed and priorities shifted, and that the best thing an alpha could do to help was protect and prepare.

That knowledge never made those days easier for Ben, who would have taken on every bit of Rey’s discomfort himself if possible, but biology was biology and she certainly needed his physical and emotional attention in the days after.

Which was all to say that Ben was as attentive to his mate and her needs as he could get away with, and had learned how best to be so without overwhelming or irritating the hell out of her- so how he had managed to miss the change in her scent until he was sheathed to the hilt in his lovely wife on a random Sunday afternoon he had no clue. Ben only knew that one moment he was nipping at her neck as he thrust into her from behind, Rey encouraging him in a breathy voice, and the next he realized that she was redolent of honey.

“Ben?” 

Rey’s tone was a blend of concern, confusion, and a little bit of annoyance. She squirmed slightly in his grip, not able to move much with his hips flush against her ass and one of his arms tight around her waist. “Is something wrong?”

He nuzzled her scent gland, for once distracted from his enjoyment of Rey’s many charms by the mystery that was literally right under his nose. Honey. Lemons. A pinch of cinnamon in the mix. “Do you remember,” he began, barely noticing how his words came out in a soft, low rumble (he noticed, though, the quiet mewl that escaped Rey’s throat, the way her back arched), “on our honeymoon, when we were on Kos- that little restaurant we found-”

She was quivering under him, rocking back as best she could, and he grinned against her neck. “Remember that honey cake they served us after lunch?” he continued. “How we liked it so much we took more back to the hotel, and we fed it to each other while still knotted together- you, sitting on top of me-”

“I’d really like to be knotted _right now_.” 

He resumed thrusting shallowly and slowly, unable to deny her but wanting to stay as close as possible. “You smell like honey cake,” he murmured in her ear. “Takes me right back to Kos, when that ring had been on your finger for less than a week and you blushed every time I called you ‘wife’.”

“I still love it when you call me ‘wife’,” she gasped, dropping to her elbows.

“I still love it when you call me ‘husband’.”

He loved every inch of her, loved _her_ so much that it was almost dizzying, and with his nose full of honey and lemon and cinnamon he set himself to giving her as much pleasure as she could take.

After, as they rested inseparable on their sides, Ben curled himself protectively around her. 

“You know what it means,” Rey said eventually, sounding sleepy and content. “The change.”

“I do.”

Their mutual agreement to forgo birth control before her last heat had practically guaranteed this particular change, after all.

“I’ll make an appointment with my doctor tomorrow.” She hummed quietly, almost consideringly, and drew his hand up to brush a kiss over his knuckles. “You smell different, too.”

Ben nuzzled his nose against her hair. “Yeah?”

“There’s just a little bit of-”

Rey yawned, then continued, “-of coffee, I think.”

“Do you like it?”

“A lot.”

“Good.” 

\- - -

“We should wait to tell everyone,” they agreed later, after her doctor had confirmed their suspicions and they had celebrated their little honeycomb. 

“It’s better to wait,” Rey said as they cuddled on the couch under a blanket, Ben nuzzling her hair contentedly. “Right?”

“I rather like having secrets with you.” He couldn’t seem to stop touching her belly, and it made Rey feel warm and soft and ridiculously safe. “Are you hungry?” 

“Not enough to move.”

“I’ll cook whatever you want.”

“I want my Alpha to cuddle me.” She paused, then admitted with a laugh, “Though I would love that white bean chili you make so well.”

“I’ll make you a vat,” he promised, keeping his arms around her. “Just tell me when.”

Rey snuggled into his embrace, breathing in the way Ben’s scent read as _joyous._ “Husband.”

“Wife.”

“I love you to pieces.”

A caress against her belly, his lips brushing the curve of her ear. “I love you, too, sweetheart. So much.”

\- - -

_We should wait to tell everyone,_ they had agreed. 

“Why does Rey smell like Christmas potpourri?” Poe asked loudly within sixty seconds of their arrival at the next family dinner, and that was that.


End file.
